Oil and gas well stimulation and mineral recovery equipment has been used for radially hole boring through well casings into oil, gas, or mineral bearing geological formations.
Oil and gas wells are drilled into oil and/or gas bearing geological formations, and, when a combination of porosity and pressure gradient in the formation are sufficient, the oil and/or gas in the formation flows to the well bore, from which it either flows to the surface of the ground under pressure or can be extracted by pumping. However, if either porosity of the formation or the pressure gradient is insufficient, flow rates of the oil and/or gas to the well bore may not enough for the well to produce at its full potential and, in some cases, even to operate or produce the well economically. This condition can be encountered in new wells and may develop over time in older wells.
To address these problems, many techniques have been developed for stimulating production from the formation, including, for example, treating the formation with acid, hydraulically fracturing the formation and propping the fractures open with porous propant materials and injecting water or other fluids into the formation from nearby wells to push or induce increased flow of the oil and/or gas to the well bore. Such stimulation techniques can also be used in water wells as well as to make a formation less resistant to injection of fluids, such as water, and to facilitate mineral recovery from mines, and other operations involving production from, and/or injection of fluids into, geological formations.